The West Indies have completely revamped their domestic first-class cricket structure.
The new West Indies Championship
The West Indies have made two significant changes to their domestic first-class cricket structure. They have dropped the Combined Campuses and Colleges, bringing down the number of teams from eight to six. However, a more significant change is the structure of the tournament.
The six teams will play three games each in the first round of the 2026 West Indies Championship, which amounts to nine first-round matches. While that is not unusual, what makes the format stand out is that the teams have been grouped into pairs (based on the final positions of the 2025 edition), and every pair will face off in a bilateral series of three games.
For the three simultaneous series, Windward Islands have been grouped with Guyana, Jamaica with Barbados, and Leeward Islands with Trinidad. The top-ranked team will then face the West Indies Academy in what is essentially supposed to be a warm-up fixture ahead of the final, while the second- and third-ranked teams will face in the other semi-final.
The final will follow after that. The entire tournament will run from April 12 to May 20 – in other words, less than six weeks.
West Indies Championship 2026 schedule
April 12-15, April 19-22, April 26-29: Windward Islands vs Guyana, Antigua
April 12-15, April 19-22, April 26-29: Jamaica vs Barbados, Jamaica
April 12-15, April 19-22, April 26-29: Leeward Islands vs Trinidad, Antigua
May 10-13: Playoff (2nd place vs 3rd place), Antigua
May 10-13: 1st place vs West Indies Academy, Antigua
May 17-20: Final (1st place vs winner of Playoff), Antigua
Why did the West Indies change their first-class domestic structure?
“The West Indies Championship will form a key part of talent identification and preparation for the home series," explained West Indies Cricket director of cricket Miles Bascombe. “The bilateral series format will add an interesting dimension, closer to mirroring the Test cricket format.” He presumably compared it to the World Test Championship, which is essentially a round of bilateral series followed by the final.
The press release mentioned that the board “redesigned formats to preserve relevance and competitive impact while managing operational costs”. Indeed, they lost US$ 28 million in 2025 after a US$ 20 million profit in each of the three preceding years.
